Dr. Brene Brown is a New
York Times best-selling author. In her book Dare to Lead, she notes
that many people, leaders included, are missing a foundational skill of
assuming the best in people. She encourages all of us to extend “the most
generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of
others.” This sounds great in theory, but it is often hard to put into
practice.
Many of her examples are situations that could be applied here at the NIH and
might resonate with trainees, including:
- Your PI doesn’t get back to you and you think they’re wasting your time (don’t care about you)
- Your PI/mentor cancels a meeting/discussion/experiments and you’re convinced they take you for granted (don’t appreciate you and/or think you aren’t a good enough scientist)
- Your summer student/postbac ruins an experiment and you view them as hopeless
- Your colleague asks you to do an additional experiment/presentation and you assume they are giving you too many responsibilities and offloading work on to you.
This can also happen
during interviews. Many times we meet with medical school applicants and
hear that they felt flustered by basic questions which felt negative to them,
such as:
Why are you here?
Why did you participate in X?
On your AMCAS it says _______, can you explain this further?
Rather than assuming the worst and viewing comments and behaviors as critical,
practice a form of kindness – assuming that others are doing the best they
can. This, however, often requires a shift in your mindset.
This individual shift can
often have larger effects. Within businesses and organizations, according to Seth Godin,
“Kindness ratchets up. It leads to more kindness. It scales better than
competitiveness, frustration, regret, revenge, merit, or apathy.”
The next time you feel frustrated, disappointed, or resentful of a colleague,
family member, or friend, take a moment and consider that this person is doing
the best they can. Likewise, in interview situations try to assume the best and
not take often benign questions as slights against you. Try this out and let us
know how this has worked for you by leaving a comment below.
